Rody ‘knew’ about Leila’s alleged ‘sex video’ series

DAVAO CITY”•President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday denied he owns a copy of the sex video of Senator Leila De Lima, but said he already knew about it even before it reached the social networking sites.

He has tagged De Lima as a protector and coddler of drug lords when she was Justice secretary under the previous administration.

De Lima on Thursday warned public officials against allowing themselves to be used in fabricating evidence against her to substantiate the charges she is involved in illegal drugs.

She appealed to Justice Secretary  Vitaliano Aguirre and NBI Director Dante Gierran not to allow themselves to be used against her. She reminded them that it’s a crime to manufacture evidence or false testimony.

“I know they are good officials. Do not allow yourselves to be a party to any perjury or to subornation of perjury,” De Lima said.

“Now if they will be doing those things, then I will make them answerable in some future time.”

De Lima also asked if she was a “terrorist” or a “drug coddler” to deserve to be a victim of “wiretapping,” telling a Senate hearing that her cellphones were being tapped.

“Is that the purpose why my cellphones are tapped now? I don’t expect anyone to answer that question, I’m just thinking aloud,” De Lima said. “Let us stop fooling each other because I am fond of watching detective stories.”

Duterte said he understood the job of De Lima when she was still commissioner of Human Rights, but he found out she was hiding something.

“She was my number one critic; she keeps on talking about human rights. Later did I know that she had a series, everybody saw it,” he said.

He said he needed to intervene in the drug problem because the future of the next generation might be affected because of it.

He said there were more than 3.7-million drug addicts in the country, and that the number would continue to increase if the problem persisted.